Too Much Peace
by Hekko
Summary: True love lasts through anything and even the death can't stop it. A sequel to For the Rest of Our Lives. WARNING: Character death.
1. Save Me, Save You

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the guys from Prison Break, innocent, guilty, convicted or free. It's hard to admit, but when I'm done with them all, I have to return them to Paul Scheuring, 20th Century Fox Television, Adelstein-Parouse Productions, and Original Television in an original wrapping and unharmed.  
I make no money, I mean no harm.

* * *

**Too Much Peace  
Save Me, Save You**

* * *

T-Bag felt a gentle hand stroking his shoulder and turned on his side to watch Susan smiling down on him. She placed a sweet kiss on his cheek and led him down the stairs into the kitchen. Gracie and Zach were already outside - or maybe still outside - he wasn't exactly sure whether it was morning or afternoon. He might have fell asleep after lunch, he certainly felt drowsy, as every time he slept during the day.

A loud crash startled him. He jerked around and found himself, not the first time since he had returned to the States, in a lonely bed in a shabby motel room.

He ran a hand over his face to get rid of the dream. It was dangerous to keep dreams like that - they may drive him crazy one day and he would forget he wasn't supposed to belong to Susan anymore. He could cause her a lot of trouble, that he could, just reappearing at her porch, and he didn't want to do that.

He had to keep his woman safe.

Not quite feeling like falling asleep again, he rolled out of the bed and sauntered into the small bathroom. He had to share the bathroom with another room, so shabby a place it was, and he wasn't sure knowing his colleagues were stationed at that room helped. He didn't especially cared for either of them, not past making sure they feared him enough to leave him alone most of the time... and that they knew beyond any doubt he was the most useful of the party.

He didn't even care why they were always sharing a room. Damon, the older of them, had made it very clear he only did women. T-Bag wasn't sure whether it was because he had spent some time in prison or because he had evaded prison so far. He had never bothered to ask. And as for Tony...

T-Bag licked his lips, eyes fixed on the reflection of the door to the other room, slightly distorted because the mirror was uneven. Tony, despite being over thirty, looked like a sweet kid. He had this cherub face and angelical smile and so innocent eyes one would never believe Tony had been stealing since the tender age of ten... using his charm as a way of getting into houses (and beds) of his girlfriends, which he fucked to sleep first and robbed afterwards. Only recently he had abandoned this way of raising money. Tony claimed he had grown bored of the neverending line of women and joked he might accidentally run into one of them twice, not remembering her until he got to see her safe, but T-Bag suspected Tony had simply grown old and his stamina, not his memory, might fall him.

But even the image of completely exhausted Tony falling asleep in the lap of a woman he intended to rob while she herself was too tired to wake up couldn't make T-Bag interested. After losing the happy backpack of cash his life had become dull. He managed to break out of yet another prison, but in the end he crossed the border back to the country where he was a wanted man, not because he couldn't make his living elsewhere, simply because the constant danger of being made and turned in to the authorities kept him feeling alive.

It was spectacularly sad, he mused, that even if he admitted who could hardly feel this alive in any other country in the world, he still felt somewhat shabby.

Voices sounded from the next room and T-Bag quickly composed himself. Damon opened the door to the bathroom, and finding T-Bag standing at the sink, clicked with his tongue.

"It's the time. You ready?" He didn't want for the answer. T-Bag was always ready. One last glance into the mirror and he followed Damon to pick his gun, their previous weapons having been discarded of during their hasty retreat from Dallas. They had been fairly successful there, but then due to a combination of bad luck and an extreme clumsiness on Damon's part, they had lost most of their earnings and had had to postpone their planned retirement.

It had been Tony who had come with this one, and a sure golden mine it would be according to him. A shady business was supposed to be done at one of the malls in the Garden City, not the mob, Tony's informer had been quick to reassure them, but a pack of amateurs. A lot of money would be there, easily gained in comparison to other sources.

They had been nearly broke and in such business already, so it hadn't taken a lot to persuade them. And now it was the time.

The car was waiting two blocks down the street. They had come afoot to the motel, and afoot they left, not to rouse suspicion. A driver had been hired, since the mall was vast and all of them would be needed inside.

It was half past ten when they got in the car, Damon and Tony tense, the driver silent and T-Bag flexing his right hand to find out whether the numbness he usually felt had been replaced in anticipation of the future action. It usually happened some time before the action and it was what told him he was still alive.

* * *

"What do we have here?" a police officer asked the most officially looking guy around. He wasn't surprised when the man flashed an FBI ID to him - he could smell these people.

"Three armed men in a packed mall. I have a sniper up on the roof opposite, but he can only see one of them."

"So fast?!"

"We were doing preparations for next week - that's classified - and showing a new guy around."

"What's the one your man can see like?" The agent switched something on his radio.

"Describe him again, Ben."

"Middle height, slim, blonde hair," sounded a voice from the radio. "Wait, the roots are dark - he probably dyes his hair." The agent rolled his eyes - Ben was good at his work, but he still couldn't help thinking he was not only gay, he was extremely gayish.

"Anything else?"

"He doesn't use his left hand. Seems prosthetic to me." The senior agent frowned.

"Seems or is?"

"Hey, Daddy Wheeler, I ain't down there to shake his hand. He doesn't use it and it's different colour than the rest of his skin." Wheeler gritted his teeth. Aside from being gayer than gay, Ben was also cheeky - came probably from being so high above his superiors.

"You wouldn't want to shake his hand, trust me. Keep an eye on him."

* * *

In the end it was easier that they had expected. Ten minutes past ten they had the money - and Damon was collecting cash from stands and customers to add to the sum - the shops were closed as soon as the three of them showed guns, but the real money was in a briefcase Damon had cuffed to his wrist - the crowd was being controlled by Tony and T-Bag - and T-Bag could see the car pulling over before the door, as had been planned.

"Going!" he shouted, the adrenaline still coursing through his veins, though the numbness was returning already. He turned to see Damon had heard him, out of the corner of his eye catching Tony's figure getting a hostage. They had agreed on one hostage, to make sure they wouldn't be too bothered on their way out, female - for purposes T-Bag understood, even if he didn't feel like joining.

"Teddy, no - please!" a high-pitched shrieked cut through the air. T-Bag jerked his head around. And there she was, at the ice-cream stall, Susan and the children. Tony had pulled Gracie forward and Zach had lunged at him, drawing his gun-hand down. Never releasing the girl, Tony shrugged the boy off of himself and pointed the gun at him. Susan froze.

In a flash, T-Bag foresaw it: Zach would be shot to death by Tony and Gracie - his Gracie - his little girl - would be dragged along as a hostage, scared and crying, and raped and murdered by Tony and Damon. His Gracie.

Teddy would never let that happen to his little girl. He raised his own gun before he knew it. He would save his daughter, at all costs.

Two gunshots echoed through the mall and Tony fell to his knees, an expression of surprise plastered on his face and two red stains blossoming on his back. Damon whirled around only to see T-Bag's gun aimed at himself. Two shots later, and he too fell dead on the floor.

As Teddy turned back to his now safe family, he felt a hard blow to his rib-cage. Another blow followed as he unvoluntarily raise his hand, still firmly gripping the gun.

Unseen and unheard by him, Ben the sniper had exclaimed, "He's killing the hostages!" and as soon as Wheeler had uttered the first syllable of, "Take him down!" had fired two times.

T-Bag fell to his knees, very much like Tony had seconds before that. He looked up. His vision was beginning to fade, but he could make out Susan's face, and althought she was still scared, she was saying his name - he would hear her if it hadn't been for the annoying sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. Before the darkness claimed him, he saw her smile at him, and despite the dying state of his body, he felt alive and happy.

He had saved them, was the last thought that crossed Teddy's mind before everything vanished.

* * *

"What is your name, ma'am?" Wheeler asked the woman before him. She had two children clinging to her, a boy and a girl, the boy had his T-shirt torn and a bruise on his arm and the girl was crying.

"Amy Hawkins." She sniffed. "This is my daughter Patricia and my son Theodore." Wheeler put it down, asked for their address and put it down as well.

"Can you tell me what happened here?"

"We were... we were shopping together, it's my mother's birthday in a week and we were out to get her something and... and I just saw a perfect tablecloth - she likes to have a lot of pretty tablecloths - and these men came in waving their guns and they wanted us to keep to this side so we went to the side." She sniffed again, but Wheeler had to give it to her, she was holding up bravely. She was talking a little too fast and her shoulders were slightly shaking, but she was still coherent, not at all sounding like in a shock.

"What happened next?" he asked in a friendly voice.

"One of them started taking money from everyone, he took my purse, it's in that bag," she pointed, "and another went to the gentleman over there and took his briefcase, I remember because the gentleman made such a fuss about it, and the last one was just standing there and watching everything."

"That was the one who started shooting later, right?" Wheeler asked, even if he had heard the story from others already. But he still couldn't believe it.

"Yes, but he wasn't shooting at us - I mean, he... he saved my Teddy!" This was new and Wheeler opened his mouth to ask the woman to elaborate, but she continued on her own, "The one who took my purse gave the bag to the one with the briefcase and came back to us and wanted to take Patty as a hostage. And Teddy, he is just a little boy, but he wanted to help her and he jumped at the man and I think I cried a little..."

"You cried a lot," the boy murmured, obviously embarassed by her affectionate tone. He may have suffered an injury and shock, but he was still a proud teenager, Wheeler noted.

"And the man you people shot down turned and saw this one aiming at my boy and shot him. And then he shot the other one, too. And then you people killed him."

Wheeler murmured something to the effect they would contact her later if necessary and confirmed her name and address once again. There was still a lot of people to be questioned, but he took a minute to stand silently over the dark blood stain in the middle of the hall. A hastily drawn outline showed where Theodore Bagwell, a murderer and a rapist and an escaped convict, fell to the ground. Not for the first time Wheeler wished Alex was still with the FBI. Because unlike him, Alex would find a way to crack this riddle. He would manage to get into Bagwell's head and see to situation from his point of view, and despite the obvious lack of information thereof, Alex would understand.

It hardly mattered in the end - why Bagwell had done it - but Wheeler felt they owed it to him. They owed him someone who would _understand._

* * *


	2. Illusions and Rings

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the guys from Prison Break, innocent, guilty, convicted or free. It's hard to admit, but when I'm done with them all, I have to return them to Paul Scheuring, 20th Century Fox Television, Adelstein-Parouse Productions, and Original Television in an original wrapping and unharmed.  
I make no money, I mean no harm.

* * *

**Too Much Peace  
Illussions and Rings**

* * *

The news reached the Hollanders the same evening. Susan was in the kitchen putting away dishes and Zach and Gracie were doing homework when the familiar name sounded from the TV. Susan whirled around in time to see pictures of the mall, the crowd of shoppers huddled to one side, and as the camera zoomed around, a pool of blood came into view.

Susan's hands turned numb and the plate she had been holding slipped out of her grasp and broke into pieces upon hitting the floor. The sound drew the children from their homework in a flash. Teddy's old mugshot was being shown on the screen, so no explaining was necessary.

Zach curled his upper lip and left as soon as it was repeated that Teddy had been killed. Gracie, however, slipped her hand into that of her mother and remained standing at her side through retelling the whole story, first by the reporter, then in as little detail as possible by one of the local cops and finally by a woman with two children, who claimed Teddy had saved her son's life.

A dark-haired woman with a son and a daughter.

"I cried for Teddy to come back to me, but he didn't listen, he never listens to me..." the woman choked out in tears, and Susan _knew._ Gracie, by the way she grasped her hand in the same moment, realised too. Susan closed her eyes.

_"Teddy, no! Please!"_

A strangled sob escaped Susan's trembling lips, and Gracie, the ever good girl, led her mother to a chair, made her sit down and hugged her. They stayed like that, soothing each other, lost in memory.

It had been three years - three long, lonely years - since they had seen him for the last time. They hadn't moved again, neither back to their previous house, and Susan had explained several times there had been really no point. If he wanted to see them again, he simply would. And Susan had been sure he wouldn't come back, if for nothing else, then for the money - the stack of bills she had found in the gloves compartment in the car and kept untouched in her bedroom. He wouldn't have left her part of the money if he had meant to come back. But he couldn't come back any more. Couldn't, because he was dead.

_Dead._

Susan blinked to chase away the tears. She was on the verge of breaking down, half because of the empty space inside herself and half because of the pressure she had not known about until it had left her suddenly. Gracie was crying, her shoulders shaking. Her firm belief that Teddy had been good, only ill, had helped her through, and she had prayed every night, Susan knew, that he should get better. Zach, on the other hand, had blamed everything on Teddy, but Susan hadn't really minded, as long as it had kept his mind at peace. She had only wished she could have found some kind of peace herself.

Nothing of it mattered anymore - no innocent forgiveness, no blind rage, certainly no indecision. And no empty wishes.

When the doorbell rang, some time later, Susan and Gracie were still clinging to each other in the kitchen. Susan wanted to let whoever it was leave, but the bell sounded again, somewhat impatiently, and she kissed Gracie before getting up and going to answer the door.

At first she didn't recognise him. The once balding man had become nearly completely bald; the few lines around his eyes and mouth had evolved into a map of wrinkles; his smile remained almost the same, until she realised he was missing a tooth.

"Charles," she said flatly instead of the word she _really_ wanted to say. "What do you want?" Her cold tone caught him unaware. Apparently, her former husband believed her to be still waiting for him. He moved as if to enter but Susan stood her ground. Him, at the very least, she could keep out of her own house.

"Now, Susan, be nice to me," he pleaded. "Can't I come in for a moment?"

"No." You're late for dinner, she thought but didn't add. By nearly fourteen years.

"I'd like to see the children."

"There's no point. They don't know you. Go away."

"But honey..." She shut the door in his face, turned around and leant on it heavily. She couldn't help but compare the two most significant men of her life and she couldn't help but wonder what had ever drawn her to Charles. He used to look better when he was young, but he had never had any real manners, he had been selfish and cocky and he had been self-centered and boring in bed. At least Susan _remembered_ him like this. Maybe whatever he had played at in the beginning had left her memory as soon as he had left her life.

Teddy, on the other hand, had been a gentleman from the start. He had held the door for her and brought her flowers on occassions and made her feel special. He had been focused on her - he had been attentive and gentle and, by God's name, he had been able to make her head spin just by taking her hand. He had aroused her every day in a way Charles hadn't aroused her at his best. For three years, she hadn't been sure about Teddy - but she was sure about Charles. She didn't want to ever see him again.

And as the doorbell sounded again and after five minutes again, she turned to tell him exactly that.

Only this time it wasn't Charles at the door. There was a tall man standing there, with fair curls where Charles had only a few hairs left, a man somewhere in his late thirties - or maybe early forties - with glasses that made him look older and a smile that could - if it had been just a little fresher - make him look younger.

"Mrs. Susan Hollander?" he asked, and when Susan nodded, he stretched out his hand, "Special Agent James Wheeler. Can I come in for a moment?" Again, Susan only nodded and stepped aside. When the agent passed her, she looked out and checked the street. Charles was nowhere to be seen. Susan closed the door and locked it, then followed Agent Wheeler in.

"Mom, who's that?" Both Susan and Zach were eyeing the stranger curiously. Wheeler, in his turn, looked struck by the sight of them.

"Just a... late guest." The children, Zach especially, didn't seem to be satisfied with that. "Will you have something? Tea or coffee?" Susan turned to Wheeler, trying to play away the awkwardness.

"Uh... a cup of coffee would do me good, I suppose, if you'll be so kind." Susan led the way to the kitchen. She noticed Gracie had swept up the broken plate, although there was one larger piece left just at the door, and Susan bent to throw it out. Wheeler took in the kitchen, the TV still on, and Susan's shaking hands as she was making coffee.

"It was in the news, naturally," he remarked, turning his gaze to the window and watching Susan out of the corner of his eye. She paused for a second.

"Naturally," she whispered. "Sugar or cream?"

"None." Wheeler took the warm cup from her and sat it on the worktop. "Accept my sympathies." That made Susan's hands shake even more, and Wheeler took her cup from her to prevent it from falling.

"Can we sit down?" she said weakly after a while. They moved to the living room, Wheeler carrying the cups, and sat down aside from the children who were pretending to do their homework. Susan's eyes were bright, Wheeler noticed, but she wasn't crying. He took a gulp of coffee and cleared his throat, unsure about how to start.

"We... found this among Bagwell's things." He placed a plastic sack on the table. "I believe he would... like you to have it."

Susan wanted to ask how he had come to the conclusion, but wasn't sure her voice wouldn't break, so she just hesitantly pulled the sack closer. Wheeler motioned for her to open it and she did. First thing she found was a piece of paper with her name and address written on it. It had been folded and unfolded many times, it seemed, and some of the letters had become unintelligible, but at the very least it explained how the FBI even had found them.

A letter in an envelope came next. The envelope hadn't been sealed and as Susan pulled out the letter, a ring fell out. Susan stared at the thin metal ring until Wheeler leant over, tilted the envelope and let a matching ring roll out of it.

Without a word, Susan pushed the rings aside and opened a letter. She let her eyes slide over it first, looked up to see the children and Wheeler feigning disinterest and finally read it word by word.

Her coffee was cold before she raised her eyes from it again.

"Gracie, Zach, bed," she ordered hoarsely. The children, unused to be talked to in that tone, reluctantly got up and came to kiss her goodnight. She had placed the letter over the rings, Wheeler noticed, so the children wouldn't see it. As soon as they disappeared upstairs, Susan walked up to the bookcase and took a bottle from behind a row of books.

"Classics," she uttered. "No-one ever reads it. Want some?" The bottle appeared to hold whisky and Wheeler shook his head. Susan poured a generous amount in a glass and stood at a window, nursing it. Wheeler didn't know what she was thinking about; that she wondered whether all the letters Teddy had sent her and she had never read had been like this one he had never sent - a desperate plea for her forgiveness, a honest declaration of love, a manifest of feelings many had thought Theodore Bagwell to be incapable of.

She downed the whisky in one gulp. Then, on an impulse:

"Can I see him?"

There was really no need for that - or rather no excuse. The body had been sufficiently identified by fingerprints. As for their relationship, it had been only vaguely mentioned in his file - Wheeler had never fully understood how it could have possibly come down to as little as that - if they hadn't found the letter and the address, they would have never remembered Mrs. Susan Hollander. She couldn't see the body without difficulty.

"I'll pick you up tomorrow morning."


	3. One Last Time

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the guys from Prison Break, innocent, guilty, convicted or free. It's hard to admit, but when I'm done with them all, I have to return them to Paul Scheuring, 20th Century Fox Television, Adelstein-Parouse Productions, and Original Television in an original wrapping and unharmed.

I make no money, I mean no harm.

* * *

**Too Much Peace  
One Last Time**

* * *

Wheeler rounded the corner just behind the school bus. He stopped two houses down the street and waited until Zach and Gracie got on before parking the car in the Hollanders' drive. Susan looked out of the door and then held it open, beckoning for him to come in.

She was dressed in dark, not completely black, but dark enough to pass as a mourning woman. Wheeler noticed the amount of mascara she wore, apparently to cover the dark bags beneath her eyes, which were red and puffy. She hadn't slept well, obviously, and had cried, but he was relieved to notice, as she was pouring a cup of tea for him, that she didn't wear the ring. He slowly drank the tea while Susan cleared the table and washed dishes. Just as he finished the cup, she stood at the table, fidgeting. She was holding a packet wrapped in brown paper. Wheeler looked at her, curious.

"I..." She cleared her throat and started again, "I wanted to give you this." And she placed the packet before him. One end of it was open and Wheeler peeked inside, lifting its edge with his forefinger. What was inside looked like money.

"Why?" The shorter the question, the better the answer, he had learned. Some people would even spill their innermost secrets when surprised with a short, open question.

"Um... Teddy left us this. I'm not sure where he got it, though." She wasn't looking him in the eye. Wheeler pulled several banknotes out of the packet and rubbed the paper. They felt right. By the size of the packet, that must have been more than a hundred thousand dollars.

"He said he got five millions for losing a hand on an oil rig, but I knew it wasn't the truth," Susan continued.

Five millions. Five millions of stolen cash. What had happened to the rest of it, no-one knew to that day. And no-one missed them anyway.

"As far as I know, it isn't being looked for," he stated. That was, essentially, true.

"I don't want it," Susan replied forcefully. "I don't." The money, Wheeler understood, had never had any value to her - aside from being from Bagwell. She didn't need it now, when she had the ring and the letter. He took the packet and, with a sigh, put it in his pocket. He couldn't admit having the money - that would rise too many questions. Some bureaucratic ass would probably conclude Susan had been in contact with Bagwell, and even if they couldn't prove that, they would stir the dust and cause trouble.

Having known Theodore Bagwell, personally and intimately, was by Wheeler's opinion enough trouble for one woman.

"Let's go," he said curtly. Susan excused herself, and while she was in the bathroom, Wheeler hid the packet behind a row of books, just next to the concealed bottle of whisky. Then, with an almost innocent smile, he led her to his car.

The drive seemed to take forever. They didn't speak, Wheeler thinking about how he had learned to lie easily, to cover his uneasiness - although he was sure Alex would still see though it - and Susan struggling to keep her dignity.

She had reread the letter before she went to bed, twice. Then she had been lying in the darkness, unable to fall asleep, the sweet endearments circling her head - Teddy had always been good with words.

_I love you more than anything else and there isn't a day I wouldn't think of you - and miss you._

She must have fallen asleep for a while, because she had woken up with a start when it had been dawning. The blue sky, more decorated than marred by a cluster of small white clouds, hadn't lifted her spirits, and against her better sense, she had reread the letter again - three times.

Before it had been time to wake up the children, she had memorised the letter.

_I wish I hadn't done all I've done, not because I would feel it was wrong, but because it separates me from you. If it makes me a bad man, I am a bad man. I wanted to be different for you._

She couldn't feel more lonely than that - sitting next to a man she barely knew. She absent-mindedly traced the place her wedding ring had once been. Her marriage had given her two beautiful children, her time with Teddy a bitter taste of disappointment, long sleepless nights, and a slight depression that had required professional treatment. Still, she wanted him back so badly she felt guilty for it.

_I wanted to be a better man for you._

He had said that before, in the prison. Susan wondered whether it was possible - and whether it was right to allow him a second chance. Of course, she could wonder all she liked. She had denied him the chance, and now it was too late.

_I could have been a better man. I could have changed, once. But now I feel so tired._

Susan had to turn away from Wheeler. It was like listening to radio that was too loud, there was no way to block it out. In spite of the fact she wasn't reading the letter, the closing lines sounded in her mind, inevitably. Forcing tears into her eyes, too.

_Please, don't forget me. I will always love you._

"We're here." Susan looked up. Wheeler had parked the car behind a large building. Susan couldn't tell whether it was a rear tract of a hospital or some federal building - or a headquarter of an alien civilisation, for the matter - and she couldn't care less. They stepped up to an anonymous door, which Wheeler unlocked with a key he had kept separately in his pocket, and then walked through a lousily lit corridor. As they approached the mortuary, voices and steps sounded from above through a staircase. The whole impression was that of another world, and it went well with Susan's mood and anticipation.

Susan waited patiently while Wheeler conferred with a man in a sickly green attire - probably the diener in charge of the place. She was trying not to fidget and not to feel sick and was startled when Wheeler called to her and motioned her to a swing door. The smell of chemicals and something _else_, only lingering in the corridor, hit Susan full force as soon as the door was open, and she pressed a hand to her mouth quickly. Wheeler pretended he didn't notice anything, although he took Susan's elbow to guide her. The diener had gone further in already, not waiting for them, and he was turning on lights above one of the tables, where a body lied, still covered with a sheet. As they arrived, the diener pulled back the sheet a little, revealing the head and shoulders of the dead man.

Susan sharply inhaled. She had known since the day before that Teddy was dead, but in spite of that, she was unprepared for seeing his corpse. She stood motionless until both the diener and Wheeler left, then stepped closer.

He had shaved off his goatee, Susan noticed, though there was stubble on his face. He was also very thin, at least by the way his skin stretched over his cheek bones. In both cases, Susan wasn't sure how much of it was the result of his death, and she reached out tentatively to caress his cheek.

She jerked her hand back as soon as the tips of her fingers touched his skin - so cold and strange to her touch it frightened her. She had seen dead bodies before - as her grandparents had died when they're times had come, and her father, quite prematurely, who had suffered a sudden heart attack while driving - she had seen all of them before they had been buried, but it had never felt so personal and scary as seeing her former lover's body stretched on a cold metal table, drained of all life. She returned closer to the table, attracted and repulsed at the same time. She had kissed those lips, played with this hair, traced those collar bones...

Out of morbid curiosity, and against her better judgement, she pulled the sheet down to his waist. The two holes in his abdomen, one on the side and one close to his heart, seemed inadequate to the damage they made. Floating on the mix of her contradictory emotions and feeling very much not like herself, Susan reached out again, this time to trace the Y-shaped lines, so inappropriate and bland, the lack of blood and colour declaring more than anything that this piece of violent cutting had been performed on a dead body. She had to overcome a new wave od nausea as she felt stiches under her fingers, but after that, she tried to reclaim the body she had known so well: she touched each scar on his torso, those she remembered from before as well as the new ones, and she rubbed the once sensitive spots on his neck and around his collar bones. Teddy's face remained calm and peaceful, undisturbed by Susan's attention, and for several torturous minutes, Susan tried in vain to prove the reality wrong, to provoke some kind of response, some sign of life.

She took his hand in the end and noticed the whitish stripe on his ring finger, and that finally did it. She broke down, tears spilling from her eyes, and at last they seemed to wash away the edge of her pain.

She recovered after ten minutes or so. She calmly put Teddy's arm back along his body and covered him with the sheet. Just before she pulled it over his head, she hesitated. She bent over to kiss him on the cheek, but changing her mind, she hovered with her mouth next to his ear and whispered, "I will never forget you." That promised, she felt at peace for the day, and she had something more to help her keep her peace - the happy expression forever imprinted to Teddy's face.

For she knew by that expression that he hadn't known. To the last moment, he hadn't seen through his mistake, and he had firmly believed he had saved them - not some other woman with two children, but _them,_ his Susan, Gracie and Zach, his _family._ And as if it could make everything right, it contented Susan. It may have been T-Bag who had killed and terrorised and even kidnapped them - but in the end, in the very end, it had been Teddy who had saved them.

* * *

**A/N:** I feel like I had to look up half of the words used in this chapter, so apologies to anyone who finds a mistake in there and feels bothered by it. Let me know if i got something wrong (just remember I'm trying for British English here)  
Also, I realise I have no idea how far is it from Susan's place to Garden City, or how long it would take to cover the distance by car. I didn't try to find out so I wouldn't feel obliged to explain how exactly they managed to get there so fast. ;)


End file.
